Alpine Scramble - Red Mountain (Commonwealth Basin)

In search of more challenging and less loose scrambling, we followed the lead of Ed Dominguez and Steve Russell, and left the trail at 4800' where it begins to traverse left below Red Pond, on moderately steep open slopes, working right of the gulley just climber's left of the SW ridge, but not hitting the ridge itself until about 5300'. Photo below shows the party just above where we left the trail:

Our party took several variations, before joining up shortly before intersecting with the standard boot path about 5400'.  Slight deviations from the bootpath afford more solid holds and additional scrambling most of the way to the summit.

Sunny mild temps and light breeze encouraged a lengthy summit lunch break.

We took the standard boot path down, as some of the uphill route was T4 with loose holds, and mossy rock or grassy slopes that would be challenging to downclimb.

There were at least 6 other parties scrambling the route while we were on it, including one peakbagging dog.  Maybe Red Mountain should be scrambled on a weekday for those that have the option, though by taking the route we did we avoiding being on the same path most of the time.

7:15 including 45' on summit.  Register from 9/2018 is currently full.